Redemption Ark

‘No, that’s what I thought, but the additional light is different. It’s coherent, peaked sharply in the optical in Skade’s rest frame.’

‘Laser light?’ Lasher asked.

Clavain looked at the pig, Scorpio’s most trusted ally. ‘So it would seem. High-power optical lasers, probably a battery of them, shining back along her line of flight. We’re probably not seeing all the flux, either, just a fraction of it.’

‘What good will that do her?’ Lasher said. He had a black scar on his face, slashed like a pencil line from brow to cheek. ‘She’s much too far ahead of us for that to make any sense as a weapon.’

‘I know,’ Clavain said. ‘And that’s what worries me. Because Skade won’t do anything unless there’s a good reason for it.’

‘This is an attempt to kill us?’ the pig asked.

‘We just have to figure out how she hopes to succeed,’ Clavain replied. ‘And then hope to hell that we can do something about it.’

Nobody said anything. They stared at the slowly wheeling square of light, with the malign little star of Nightshade burning at its heart.

The government spokesman was a small, neat man with fastidiously well-maintained fingernails. He despised dirt or contamination of any sort, and when the prepared statement was handed to him — a folded piece of synthetic grey government vellum — he took it between his thumb and forefinger only, achieving the minimum possible contact between skin and paper. Only when he was seated at his desk in Broadcasting House, one of the squat buildings adjoining Inquisition House, did he contemplate opening the statement, and then only when he had satisfied himself that there were no crumbs or grease spots on the table itself. He placed the paper on the desk, geometrically aligned with the table’s edges, and then levered it open along its fold, slowly and evenly, in the manner of someone opening a box that might possibly contain a bomb. He employed his sleeve to encourage the paper to lie flat on the surface, stroking it across the text diagonally. Only when this process was complete did he lower his eyes and begin scanning the text for meaning, and then only so that he would be certain of making no mistakes when delivering it.

On the other side of the desk, the operator aimed the camera at him. The camera was a cantilevered boom with an old float-cam attached to the end of it. The float-cam’s optical system still worked perfectly, but its levitation motors were long expired. Like many things in Cuvier, it was a taunting reminder of how much better things had been in the past. But the spokesman put such thoughts from his mind. It was not his duty to reflect on the present standard of living, and — if truth be told — he lived a comfortable enough existence by comparison with the majority. He had a surplus of food rations and he and his wife lived in a larger than average domicile in one of the better quarters of Cuvier.

‘Ready, sir?’ asked the camera operator.

He did not answer immediately, but scanned once more through the prepared text, his lips moving softly as he familiarised himself with the wording. He had no idea where the piece had originated, who had drafted and refined it or puzzled over the precise language. It was not his business to worry about such matters. He knew only that the machinery of government had functioned, as it always did, and that great, solid, well-oiled apparatus had delivered the text into his hands, for him to deliver to the people. He read the piece once more, and then looked up at the operator.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe we are ready now.’

‘We can run through it again if you’re not happy with the first reading. This isn’t going out live.’

‘I believe one take should suffice.’

‘Right you are, then…’

The spokesman cleared his throat, feeling a spasm of inner revulsion at the thought of the phlegm being dislodged and resettled by that particular bodily action. He began to read.